Status: 08.09.2022 10:17 a.m
The federal government’s plans to skim off high profits from electricity producers are met with skepticism by green electricity manufacturers. They fear that this could stall the expansion of renewable energies.
The green electricity providers have appealed to politicians to only use the planned skimming off of high profits as a short-term measure in the fight against acute energy price inflation. “Of course, the industry does not want to be counted among the ‘war profiteers’ and is facing up to its social responsibility,” said Silke Weyberg, the managing director of the state association for renewable energies in Lower Saxony/Bremen, the dpa news agency.
Green electricity producers fear burdens
In the medium to long term, however, one must ensure that generation from alternative sources in Germany makes more progress and is not additionally burdened by permanent interventions, according to Weyberg.
Carsten Körnig from the German Solar Industry Association also emphasized that the burden should not be placed on those who are urgently needed to overcome the fossil energy crisis. “If you take away their breeding ground and planning security, then they will invest in solar and wind parks abroad, but not in Germany.”
EU energy ministers meeting ahead
The managing director of the German Wind Energy Association, Wolfram Axthelm, also warned that measures for this winter should not cause problems in the following winter. “Because it will be crucial to overcome the fossil energy crisis in the long term through a rapid expansion of renewable energies.” Incentives for rapid investment in expansion should not be thwarted.
Tomorrow the EU energy ministers will meet to discuss the EU Commission’s proposals to siphon off excessive profits from energy companies. The proposals are similar to the federal government’s plans to skim off “chance profits” from electricity producers and use them to relieve consumers by capping the electricity price.
Merit order principle favors green electricity producers
The background is the so-called merit order principle on the electricity market: According to this, the last bid that receives a surcharge on the electricity exchange determines the uniform electricity price. With this pricing system, all producers who can produce electricity cheaper than the market price are rewarded.
Currently, these are primarily manufacturers of wind and solar energy, because they have the lowest production costs. So the profit margin is the highest here. The uniform electricity price in Europe, on the other hand, is currently mainly determined by expensive gas-fired power plants that are used to produce electricity.
Wind and solar industry still at an advantage?
This “advantaging” of the green electricity industry was once intended by the legislature to give suppliers incentives to expand renewable energies. However, the government is now arguing that this incentive system will be reduced to absurdity if the maximum price shoots up too much.
In government circles it is argued that at least the principle has not changed: those who produce the cheapest electricity still have the greatest profit even when setting a price limit from which “accidental profits” are skimmed off.
In the first half of the year, renewable energy sources accounted for almost half of the electricity generated in Germany, at 48.5 percent. Wind (25.7 percent), sun (11.2 percent) and biogas (5.7 percent) had the largest shares.